Bad dialogue
Each time I sit down in front of the laptop, one of my goals is to craft crisp, well-paced, realistic, and original dialogue. A daunting task depending upon the day.…
Abbreviated
Another amusing Twitter application: Converting classic novels into 140-character tweets. From the Guardian comes an article about this new medium and this treatment of Pride and Prejudice, one of my…
The good and the bad
I think it’s essential for writers to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Awareness allows writers to take advantage of their strengths while mitigating their weaknesses. In this spirit, here are…
Fiction set in real life
I read a piece in The Guardian about Project Bookmark Canada. Its mission is to “place permanent markers displaying text from stories and poems in the locations where they take…
Old man
In her latest series of notes on Unexpectedly, Milo, Taryn indicated that I use the phrase old man quite a lot. Scoffing at the suggestion, I used the Find feature…
In good company
A while ago, I wrote about Timequake, the last novel by Kurt Vonnegut that I have yet to finish. I’ve been purposely reading the book at a snail’s pace for…
I pity the publisher…
My agent, Taryn, informed me that after my fourth New York Times bestselling book, I’m allowed to write an entirely character-driven novel without any thought or concern for the plot.…
Characters and their names
Last week, a student asked me for a lesson on creating strong characters for his fiction, including tips on how to generate the names of characters as well. I tried…
Not acting my age
One added benefit of my recent mention in USA Today was the printing of my age, 38.Many of my friends and colleagues thought that this was a misprint, assuming that…
Storytelling on Twitter
For those of you on Twitter, you may be aware of the recent explosion of Twitter stories or novels, sometimes called Twisters, that people are now writing. They are essentially…
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